FBW Fly By Wire a320 ILS questions

Oh you know what, I bet it is the flaps…I looked at the checklist as saying “flaps…full” meaning they were on full, but if it is in blue it must be saying I still need to put it on full-4…and becomes green when I do it. Obviously I should keep track of how many times I changed the flaps but might have looked over the checklist and gone…got it full flaps. Also, when I look at the flap knob it also looks like it is on full when it is at 3.

I’m thinking it is the flaps and me misreading the checklist and flap knob.

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Good to have it isolated!

Thank you all for the help, landings are a lot smoother without as many alarms. Looking for blue on the ecam really helps reduce mistakes. I have two more questions. Should I arm both APs if it is a CAT I approach?

Should I have strobes on rather than auto for landing. As I understand it I should have strobes on for takeoff or else they dont come on until airborn. Do I do the same for landing?

I always turn on both AP whenever I’m on ILS approach mode, regardless of the CAT. If you end up with manual landing in the end, you’re going to disengage them anyway. But just to be safe, if you’re on low visibility approach, both AP will help you do an Autoland procedure. (even though in the current build even a single AP can do autoland). I just like buttons that are turned on… Hahaha.

With regards to AP, I always flip 'm on both due to technical reasons from real life (that aren’t very interesting to elaborate on).

With regards to strobes it’s an interesting question. Generally, all lights on an aircraft are ways of communication. Here’s the proper sequence.

Navigation Lights: To be turned on once you’re tuned into the ground controller radio frequency. You are communicating to this person that you are available for hails if he called you over the radio. /Off once the radio’s are no longer on active at the gate.

Beacon lights: prior to engine start you’re communicating to the platform that the engines are about to come on. /Off once engines are shutdown.

Taxi lights: After pushback procedures, you’re communicating that the aircraft is now independently moving over the platform. /Off just before turning into the gate (because you don’t want to blind platform workers and air marshallers that are guiding you in.

Strobes: On upon entering the runway. You’re communicating that the aircraft is now part of the air traffic. /Off after leaving the runway. (And by habit you switch transponder modes together with your strobes).

Landing lights: On upon entering the runway. You’re communicating that the aircraft is on hampered speed untill below 10,000 feet or the speed restricted altitude. /Off once passing that altitude.

Cabin lights: off during takeoffs and landings. Well that’s just for people having proper eye sight during night time evacuations, should the lights come off during disaster and people need to find their way in the dark. But I’ll bet you’re glad they don’t tell you that during the polite announcements right? :wink:

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A couple of things:

  1. “Too low terrain” (Mode 4) is not active until reaching 1000 ft radio altitude in clean configuration and has nothing to do with “not climbing steep enough”, rather a shallow descent will trigger this one before any other mode will (Mode 1, 2 or FLTA). You are confused with Mode 3 “Don’t sink” which is active during take-off or go-around although the description “not climbing steep enough” would also be incorrect here.
  2. Additionally Premature Descent Alert (PDA) is a feature of Enhanced GPWS and uses the same “too low terrain alert”, but PDA is only active on approach for airports in the onboard terrain database.
  3. Mode 2 “Terrain, Terrain” does not mean the aircraft is descending to steep, you are confused with Mode 1 “Sink-rate”. The Mode 2 soft alert activates for unsafe terrain closure which does not have to mean a descent, could be rapidly rising terrain while flying level or even while climbing.

I didn’t see anything wrong in the Skybrary article though, for mode 4 it states AFTER take-off, meaning its inactive during take-off, formally take-off ends at the end of the 4th segment. The description “Terrain rising faster than the aircraft” is a little meh… Terrain rising or aircraft descending into it would be more correct. Basically terrain closure shallow enough as to not trigger mode 2 or FLTA.

This is the complete list of (E)GPWS modes:

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Usually navigation lights are used to signal the aircraft is electrically powered. I’ve never heard of this use of a nav lights before. Not in commercial aviation at least.

You could, but be aware that in real life you shouldn’t make an autoland during CAT I, you should always request CAT II/III when performing an autoland to ensure the ILS sensitive area is protected.

Thank you for the information!

What do you think about strobe lights on landing, should they be on auto or “on” to ensure they are on when I touchdown on the runway?

Maybe I’m misunderstanding your post. You think the terrain display system uses an actual radar? Because this is completely wrong, it uses an onboard terrain / obstacle database and GPS position + geometric altitude. Everything you see on that display is virtual, it’s not a radar. You could use the weather radar in the ground mapping mode but this isn’t very useful as it won’t show your relative altitude to terrain.

I don’t know what AUTO does on the Airbus. On the planes I fly we turn them ON when entering the runway and OFF when runway vacated after landing. So they remain on during the entire flight. I can tell you, that’s how every aircraft and every airline operates.

I doubt the AUTO function knows when entering or leaving a runway so I assume it’s tied to the weight-on-wheels so ON when airborne, OFF when on ground? I’m not familiar with the Airbus so it’s a guess.

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Thank you again!

I believe auto means strobe is on when the plane is airborne. Not sure why this is a function unless it is to prevent people from forgetting altogether. I’m pretty sure the strobe needs to be on during takeoff, then I think goes to auto when airborne. I don’t recall any video or checklist tell me to put it back from auto to “on” on during landing but seems to make sense if it is supposed to be “on” during takeoff.

So I from what I am gathering from your post, make sure it is “on” during landing until taxi?

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Until runway vacated, yes. And it’s a plausible explanation for the AUTO function indeed. @PZL104 can probably tell you what it is used for,

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What I read about it is that ‘Auto’ is to be regarded as ‘Off’. So it’s a bit of a redundancy. If the pilot forgets to turn them on, they will go on anyway.

Of course… read on the internet… so if it’s true…? Only Airbus knows (and PZL104)!

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Makes sense. Does the crew ever put the switch in off when they are powering everything off?

Depends on the operator maybe, anyway it’s a small detail. I flew for an operator never turned the nav lights OFF, another which does turns navs OFF during power down, and back ON first thing during power up…

Hey folks,
Didn’t want to start a new thread.
Sorry for hijacking. :smiley:

Had to land manually into EDDB last night.
Approach mode didn’t work for me anymore. Could follow the diamonds manually though.

Is it a general problem after SU5? Could only do this one flight, took my hours to get the sim running after various CTDs…

I’m livestreaming into YPAD right now. I’ll know the answer to your question when I’m on approach.

Cool mate, let’s see how it goes.
Btw. I forgot: Using Navigraph data, this ‘might’ be an issue.

But let’s see how your landing goes first. :wink: